


if music be the food of love.

by castcommune



Category: Something Rotten! - Kirkpatrick/Kirkpatrick/O'Farrell
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Possibly Unrequited Love, canon spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:42:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23741008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/castcommune/pseuds/castcommune
Summary: Perhaps it was a selfish thing, choosing to work on something solely to out-shine someone who glows radiant even on the darkest of days; alas, therein lies the rub.
Relationships: Nick Bottom/William Shakespeare (Something Rotten!)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	if music be the food of love.

Will sometimes says, _ all the world's a stage _ , and Nick hesitates to ask where the curtains drape in pained agony, anticipation daunting as the show drags on for days on end. He loves the performance more than the performer, grin sharp like a dagger ready to be pressed into tender back; he says,  _ why don't you let your guard down? _ , and Nick wants to ask just the same, wants to laugh in his face at the claim that it is _he_ who should end the act. Does the illustrious Shakespeare ever stop to consider the audience, he wonders; pray tell, does he consider the gazes drawn to his pitiful show, ever think perhaps they are drawn due to pity and not adoration? Nick wonders these things, as he does many others, as he yet again looks to his phone, an unread message glaring back at him with the ill-intent of a vandal --- wait, lest he paint over your fear. Wary he may be, yet curious all the same; it is but a terrible thing, to love something you don't yet fully understand, and yet Nick does it still, a wounded animal dragging itself to salvation. Is it wrong, he wonders, to leave his friend waiting for a response? To eradicate this romance of the power Will so desperately clings to --- it is a wondrous thought, a beautiful fantasy that wilts away like a lullaby of long ago. 

He opens the message, staring at it intently. 

> _ [ txt ]: Why is that so hard to believe? _

\--- and he wants to scream. God, does Nick want to cry up to the sky and ask whatever puppet master clung to their twisted strings: _why?_ Why does this man whom Nick has detested, held a revulsion for for years now, insist upon a love incapable of existing between them? Why does he insist upon love at first sight, when Nick has been blinded by hate for so long? He knew this man well enough to know when he was lying, to know when he was craving attention from someone, _anyone_ \--- Nick didn't want to _be_ that person, that was never going to be him, and yet still, he finds himself tapping a message in response. 

> _ [ txt ]: It's insane! _

\--- he sends, thinking the thought of Will, of all people, loving him to be preposterous. Then, he sends another.

> _ [ txt ]; You haven't loved me that long! I know you better than that. _

\--- and that is where Nick leaves it, for now. He sets his phone back onto the table, screen down, and leans back in his chair; he's seated at his desk, another long night spent writing away on a show that would one day change the course of the future as they know it. This, he knew for a fact; screw heavy costs to pay, screw the consequences. This show would change everything, and that was what this pining opposition did not see. Oh, the woes of being an artist not served fame on a silver platter, this struggle of carving your name into the trunk of this world, where it would lie visible for generations upon generations to see. Writing wasn't about the money ( though it _would_ be nice ), and it wasn't about the attention ( though _that_ would be nice, too ) --- it was about leaving something behind, a legacy built on the foundation of talent, not persuasion. He didn't know if this project would be the one for him, but he had hope. 

His phone buzzes, and he hesitates for a moment before reaching to pick it up and read the message he knows is waiting for him.

> _ [ txt ]; Do you know me, Nick? Do you really? _

\--- and Nick sets his phone back down. Without replying, without acknowledging it --- he tries to ignore it, but the phone buzzes again, and again. He looks back at his laptop screen, where an unfinished script sits idle, waiting for something new, some new development that brings everything together; words, he thinks, are usually just words, just letters thrown together in a language we can all understand, but in order for them to _resonate_ , in order for them to make sense in both the mind and the heart, hey need something _more_ , something to bind them all together. Like understanding, he thinks, or love, or ---

His phone buzzes again; he ignores it.

He looks to his script, the book of a musical he's too tired to think of as a musical right now; _ if music be the food of love _ , Will once wrote,  _ then play on  _ \--- funny, how prose written by an enemy could haunt you even in a half-awake slumber, even as you fret over a project meant only to knock the man from his pedestal. Perhaps it was a selfish thing, choosing to work on something solely to out-shine someone who glows radiant even on the darkest of days; alas, therein lies the rub: selfish it may be --- desperate, perhaps, too --- Nick simply wants to show Will that not everything is about  _ him _ . Every single adored piece of work would not be a Shakespearean work. 

The title of his script glares back at him: _Omelette, a new musical_. 

Not everything would be a Shakespeare masterpiece; not if Nick Bottom had any say in it.


End file.
